What is Bariatric Surgery?

Bariatrics is simply the field of medicine focused on obesity, its causes, prevention and treatments. Bariatric surgery is divided into two different approaches to helping treat obesity: restrictive, where the stomach's size and capacity are reduced, and malabsorption, where the stomachs ability to absorb calories and nutrients is reduced.

At Mercy Bariatrics our team of leading experts is ready to help you meet your weight loss and health goals. We provide a variety of bariatric procedures including gastric sleeve, gastric banding and gastric bypass. In addition to your primary care physician, we call on our psychologists, dietitians, physical therapists, cardiologists, pulmonologists and surgeons to ensure your success. Bariatric surgery is just one part of your lifelong commitment to better health-but we're here to help.

Disclaimer: Surgery may be associated with its own set of problems, such as infection, poor wound healing, and rarely even death. Therefore, you and your surgeon should carefully discuss the risks of your current health condition compared to the risks and benefits of surgery.

If you're not eligible for bariatric surgery, Mercy is still here to help. We have teams of weight loss specialists for non-surgical options as well.

Meet Our Surgeon

Following in the footsteps of both his grandfather and father, Mark Perna, MD, graduated from the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He completed a general surgery residency at the Medical University of South Carolina and a bariatric surgery fellowship at the University of Missouri Hospital and Clinics, where he subsequently joined the surgery faculty.

Bariatric surgery remains a strong clinical and research interest of his. He is a member of the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery and has presented at the 2014 Obesity Week.

Mercy Top News

Shorter hospital stays, fewer complications and better patient results are just a few metrics used to rank Mercy as one of the top five large health systems in the nation, alongside Mayo. The 2019 IBM Watson Health 15 Top Health Systems study recognizes five large, five medium and five small systems from 337 health systems and 2,961 hospitals across the U.S.